Paleo Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes with Pumpkin-Seed Scallion Pesto

It’s always fun, in a slightly worrisome and embarrassing sort of way, when I get asked to teach someone a dish I’ve never made before. And such was the case with this cauliflower mashed potato recipe.

For potato lovers like myself, cauliflower can seem like the poor (paleo) man’s carb. But it is surprisingly adept at mimicking all manners of starch. I have yet to try the cauliflower fried rice that’s making the rounds on the web. But after this cauliflower pizza crust turned out perfectly dense and crispy, I’m officially a believer.

So when one of my private class clients asked me to add a cauliflower mashed potato recipe to the menu, I went against all of my teacherly instincts, and decided to wing it on her dime.

This was a lot less risky than the time I did the same thing with a $150 Christmas goose. And luckily, thanks to the fairly straightforward technique involved, it turned out a lot better than that catering semi-disaster. In fact, the cauliflower mashed potatoes were so easy and foolproof, I went right home and started dreaming up other flavor combinations to try beyond the usual butter and chive nonsense.

Ever since this Peking chicken recipe, I’ve become a huge fan of subbing coconut oil for butter to add body and richness to healthier dishes (I like this brand). So with this in mind, I decided to whip up my cauliflower mashed potatoes with a few tablespoons, and then top them with an Asian-inspired pumpkin seed scallion pesto.

The combination was a most excellent bed for this Gluten-Free Meatloaf with Ginger-Sriracha Glaze, and something I’m happy to now have in my back pocket for the next low carb friendly class. Also, I very much enjoyed tricking you guys into thinking the scallion pesto image was pistachio ice cream on instagram.

Have any of you tried other cauliflower carb substitutions? I’d love to hear your yays and nays in the comment section!

Ingredients

Instructions

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.

Cook the cauliflower until fork tender, about 10 minutes. Drain very thoroughly and return to the pot. Add the coconut oil and mash the cauliflower until smooth. Taste for seasoning and add more salt if needed.

Reader Interactions

Comments

yes – minimal stems. You wouldn’t want more than 1/2 inch below the mushroom cloud 🙂 but they still get pretty tender when you parboil. I had no trouble with a regular masher, but if you wanted something smoother you could add to a food processor. They don’t get gluey like potatoes.

Cauliflower isn’t of one our favorite veggies (we prefer it’s ‘cousin’ broccoli) but we’ve seen how versatile it is in the web and perhaps we must rethink this:) Your recipe sounds very good, different and definitely an interesting new thing to try! We’ll take one on Saturday in the farmer’s market to check this one out, we really want to see how it turns out! Thank you for this novel idea Phoebe! xoxoxo

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I’m Phoebe: gluten-free chef, culinary instructor, Hashimoto’s advocate, & author. I’m obsessed with the sweet spot where health and hedonism intersect, in the kitchen and beyond. And I want to help you find it too. READ MORE ABOUT PHOEBE